Friday, May 6, 2011

I refer to the action outside the venue, where us scruffy anarchists and sign-carriers were assembled under the watchful eye of Greenville's Finest. In addition, it was Cinco de Mayo and downtown Greenville was packed with inebriated revellers.

I was verbally assaulted upon arrival, as a drunken right-winger asked me if I knew what L stood for????? He was leering/grimacing at me, and if there had been no cops around, I think there is an even chance he would have hit me.

I answered, "Love!"

He sneered. (I know he was thinking some variation of: Damned hippies!) He shouted in my face, stinking of beer, that it stood for LIBERAL and LIAR.

"I think it stands for love," I repeated. He wasn't having any.

"One reason! Just ONE! That you hate Fox News!"

I thought a second, "Glenn Beck," I answered.

"What about him?" he demanded, red-faced.

"He's insane," I answered.

"You just said A LOT about yourself just now!" he half-grimaced at me, yelling, "You just said A LOT!!!"

"I hope so!" I smiled, and backed away from him. In doing so, I nearly backed into Mark Sanford, about 3 feet away, babbling into a microphone. (((scream))) I turned in the other direction, as a low-country accented woman with hair piled high, accosted me. "You have NEVAH seen Fox News, if you believe that! NEVAH!" Republican onlookers offered some scattered applause, and I shouted, "I've seen far TOO much of it!"--the Ron Paul boys guffawed, as various other Republicans filing into the Peace Center offered some boos.

The overt hostility reminded me of the old days of you-know-who back in 1980, the last time a Republican screamed at me over a sign.

The Greenville News accounts of the Fox News debate are here and here, but the links may not work... as stated before, they usually nab me by the end of the day. A Republican account (warning, not safe for liberals, click at your own risk!) is here, in which Herman Cain (!), the black conservative former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, is regarded as the winner. The other participants were Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson and the redoubtable Ron Paul.

The Ron Paul people are just so likeable and INVOLVED, you can't help but get enmeshed in conversation with them. Most are respectful of all views, unlike the nutjobs who verbally assaulted me upon arrival. All stopped and complimented our anti-war signs. And I think it DOES matter that they seem like nice people.

When I heard that during the debate, Ron Paul had actually proposed legalizing prostitution, marijuana and even heroin and bringing all the troops home from God-knows-where, well, I was practically ready to sign on... even as I worry he would destroy the social-service safety net and Medicare. The sheer BALLS of talking this way on Fox News; you just want to reward him. Damn, why don't the other candidates (including the president and everyone on the left) TALK LIKE THIS??? They talk about money, money, save money, but where are they gonna GET that money? Dr Paul has figured it out; he doesn't talk about saving money without, you know, talking about where that money will actually come from, as Lindsey Graham and other pro-war neocon hacks do.

Suddenly, the hypocrisy of the Republican Party is shown in stark relief, and as I said, you just want to give the dude a medal.

Keep holding their feet to the fire, Dr Paul. It's fun to watch them squirm.

In fairness, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson also offered an anti-war line, so good for him.

~*~

Photos below:

1) Ron Paul supporter I talked to for about 15 minutes, very nice person.

2) Fox News people wait for their close-ups. (Those TV-lights are incredible; I need to take them with me from now on, particularly whenever I shoot photos at night!)

They deliberately backed their chairs up to a turn lane on the corner, so we couldn't get right in back of them with our signs. Cagey!

3) Herman Cain supporter. A Fox News poll at the end of the evening, declared Cain the winner of the debate.

I am only speaking from personal experience and I know that anecdotal evidence is not worth much. Most of the "nice" Ron Paul supporters that I've met were single issue pot heads who thought that Paul would allow them to smoke all the weed they want. Beyond that they do a little vague talking about peace and freedom but I've come across plenty of recently released convicts who would happily stay in prison for life if they had free access to their drugs of choice. Also, back in the late '70's I knew a whole crew of "nice" libertarians. They had the correct position on any civil libertarian issue you could name, until the Libertarian Jesus, Ronald Reagan, was placed in office by God. After that the only freedom that mattered was the free market. My experience has been that Libertarians are out-of-office Republicans. And hey, thanks for showing up and protesting. I don't know how I would've handled the confrontations you describe.

good for you, Daisy, for being out there and standing up for what you believe in :)and I think you should take an even closer look at Ron Paul and ask him and his supporters plenty of questions. I can tell you that it is very VERY easy for me to be an organic food eating, crunchy earth mother, feminist, folk music singer, independent woman, business leader, and Ron Paul supporter :) Nice to meet you!

and we're back ... because the next stop on my blogs round was No 1 London blogger Norm Geras who posted on this relevance to your beery abuser ..."After referring to how common it is for people to use reason in attempts to confirm views they already hold, Ian draws attention to an interesting study:

A new paper, written by a couple of evolutionary psychologists, has caused a big stir in the world of social sciences by proposing that such behaviours aren't distortions of our reasoning ability; they are why we have it in the first place. This is called "the argumentative theory of reasoning". One commentator on the paper summarises its core proposition like this:

Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments.

We tend to think of reason as an abstract, truth-seeking method that gets contaminated by our desires and motivations. But the paper argues it's the other way around - that reasoning is a non-violent weapon given to us by evolution to help us get our way. Its capacity to help us get to the truth about things is a by-product, albeit a hugely important one. In many ways, reasoning does as much to screw us up as it does to help us. The paper's authors, Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier, put it like this:

The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice (among other things).

Thanks everyone for your nice comments... April, when RP ran for president as a libertarian, I believe he WAS pro-choice, if memory serves. I don't know if he was really anti-abortion then and didn't challenge the Libertarian Party on the subject or what, but I can recall in the 70s that libertarians considered abortion private, like weed, et al.

Rosie, I will vote for RP in the Republican primary; I usually vote in the GOP primary to draw the party to the left, or at least, away from MORE WAR (their favorite song for the past ten years). I did vote for him in the last SC primary. SC always goes Republican away, so I am not wasting any precious liberal votes or anything! (strategic voting, I believe in it!)

Jon, the RP supporters I met seemed like a wide variety, some potheads sure, but one guy I talked to at length was a small businessman who had to go bankrupt due to govt regulation and taxation of his tiny business. Why is GE paying no taxes while this little dude was getting taxed to DEATH? That's just wrong.

I have decided no politician is perfect, and democracy-in-action is a series of chess moves. We have to make the next right move, while somehow remembering the pic picture. It's a balancing act for sure.

Daisy you seem to be a fair minded lady. I am about as big a Ron Paul supporter as one can be. I wish I had known there was an eager ear there last night I would have gladly lended you my time to discuss his policies. Everything is constitutionally based and based on the idea that we all have the right to life, liberty, and property. He has a 20 year record of integrity that is unmatched. Even his worst enemies will allow that he has never wavered in his beliefs or positions. He has the nickname of Dr. No because of his propensity to vote no on so many bills (because he sees them as outside of the powers enumerated to congress in The Constitution). He has never voted to raise taxes, has never voted for an unbalanced budget,voted against the Iraq War, has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership, has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch, has never voted to raise congressional pay, has never taken a government-paid junket.

Quite honestly the list goes on and on. He actually return $140k to the the treasury last year from his congressional budget AND he does not participate in the congressional pension plan.

Dr. Paul has stated about abortion that he personally is pro-life. That being said he doesn't think it is the responsibility nor the prerogative of the federal government to make decisions for a women that should be made between her and her doctor. He has delivered over 4,000 babies!

I have really come to love this guy as many of us have. I urge you to buy his new book Liberty Defined, read about the whys and hows of his policies and see if maybe you couldn't get behind the last honest man in Washington DC.

Did Ron or Rand Paul ever return those contributions to Don Black and the White Supremacist Stormfront Organization? I see the libertarians playing a lot of footsie with racists, they can give them the legal cover and power to privately discriminate if it is their desire. And of course there is the jew thing. One of the first thing Rand Paul did when elected was to call for an end to all aid for Israel. Sure it played well with his backers, as well as with many anti zionist (but not anti semitic, of course!) leftists.

I don't know anything about stormfronts, but I do know that Paul's policy is to eliminate ALL foreign aid, not just Israel's. That means eliminating aid to Israel's traditional enemies like Egypt and Syria as well. So by your rational he must then also be a Zionist right?

Here's some non subjective dirt on Ron Paulhttp://field-negro.blogspot.com/2011/05/ron-i-thought-we-were-cool.htmlI will not apologize for the fact that I would not trust the guy any further than I could throw a piano.

And let's not forget that Mr. Reasonable sounding constitutionalist named his son after that prominent sociopath, Ayn Rand. The boy has been living up to his name too. Sure, Ron is good at glad handing and telling you what you want to hear. He's a professional politician. Recent events in Michigan and Wisconsin would seem to indicate that when these Rand worshippers talk about smaller government they mean dictatorship. I'm not seeing anything to indicate that he's anything other than another vampire.

Eric Dondero is a straight up dumbass in my opinion. :-) He wrote one the the articles you linked to.

By the way Daisy...after you left I encountered both Governor Sanford and Eckstrom..and yelled at BOTH of them. *Grinnin* I hope they had nightmares!

It was great being out there with you and all the rest. Looking forward to next Friday in Charlotte!

Ryan...only Barbara Lee voted against the War on Iraq. You can look it up bro. Ron Paul either voted in favor of the war resolution, voted "present", abstained or wasn't there...but he did not vote against it.

Jon...Rand Paul was not named after Ayn Rand. It's short for Randall I believe.

Listen, I'm not a Paulista. There is plenty of accurate stuff to raise questions about him. It just makes sense to be sure of your facts first.

Yeah, you do look great, and I totally enjoyed reading about your experience. Especially the Paul experience, as he'd be the one I'd want running against a dem. My thought is to back my favs on each side so that if one doesn't get in, I'm not too disappointed. Talk about covering my bases, lol.

Libertarians are half right. But when it comes to wealth, they are still Republicans who support the Golden Rule, those with the gold make the rules. They still revere those who claim power and influence by "divine right of wealth".